Paradise Restored
With the removal of invasive rats from Palmyra Atoll, its native vegetation is making a grand comeback
When UC Santa Barbara community ecologist Hillary Young spent time at the Palmyra Atoll in 2006 to study the effects of seabirds on resident plant communities, she got a bit more than she bargained for: rats.
“Rats would literally run over your feet in the dark and skitter across the tin roofs, keeping you awake at night,” she recalled of her earliest visits there.
Situated in a remote area of the Pacific Ocean, Palmyra Atoll had been visited only sporadically in its early documented history. But during World War II the island was briefly — and heavily — populated by U.S. Navy troops who utilized its strategic location. With the people likely came the rats, and with no natural predators on the island, the rodents quickly proliferated and disrupted the balance of life by eating seabird eggs, native crabs and native seeds and seedlings.
